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Manufacturers Index - Watson-Stillman Co.
Patents
This page contains information on patents issued to this manufacturer.

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USPTO = U.S. Patent Office . Images of the actual patent can be viewed on the U.S. Patent Office web site but a special TIFF viewer must be installed with your browser in order properly work. More information on how to configure your computer to view these patents can be found at TIFF image Viewers for Patent Images.
DATAMP = Directory of American Tool And Machinery Patents . A sister site to VintageMachinery.org with information on patents related to machinery and tools. A much easier user interface than the USPTO's for finding information on machinery patents.

Patent Number Date Title Name City Description
8,203 Jul. 08, 1851 Portable hydraulic press Richard Dudgeon New York, NY This is the first portable hydraulic press. Its development was funded by drugstore owner Eliphalet Lyon, who manufactured this design under his own name, to considerable success. In 1859 Lyon finally assented to taking on Dudgeon as partner and they operated as Dudgeon & Lyon. That only lasted for a year or so until Dudgeon, unhappy with Lyon's unwillingness to share decision-making, sued to end the partnership. In the end, the partnership was dissolved and Lyon formed E. Lyon & Co. (which eventually became the Watson-Stillman Co.), and Dudgeon operated under his own name. Both were successful and the descendants of both business survive today (as of 2018).
This first design for a portable hydraulic jack used water as the fluid, although the patent recognizes that other fluids could also be used. One commonly used fluid was alcohol, often in the form of whiskey—those were the days before heavy taxation of liquor—and so these jacks were once known as "whiskey jacks". The reservoir was in the head at the top of the jack, which made it rather unbalanced, and the jack was not nearly as effective pushing horizontally as vertically. But it was still a useful and successful design that sold well. Dudgeon and others made numerous improvements in the next few decades.
22,713 Jan. 25, 1859 Hydraulic press Richard Dudgeon New York, NY
44,358 Sep. 20, 1864 Improvement in hydraulic jacks Thomas H. Watson New York, NY "The nature of my invention consists in providing a reservoir holding fluids sufficient, when forced into the cylinder of the jack, to push the ram out is entire length when it is in a horizontal position, which is not accomplished by the hydraulic jacks now in use and described in Fig. 1, in which the force-pump is in the center of the reservoir, and when the jack is in a horizontal position half the contents of the reservoir is below the center of the pump and cannot run into and supply it with water sufficient to more than one-third fill the cylinder..." This patent acknowledges patent 8,203, which was granted to Richard Dudgeon who at the time was working for Thomas H. Watson's stepfather, Eliphalet Lyon.
83,981 Nov. 10, 1868 Metal Punch Warren Lyon New York, NY This, my invention, consists in a novel arrangement of devices with and for operating a sliding punch or punch-stock, including a lever, pinion, toothed sector, and pitman, eccentrically pivoted at its one end to the .latter, and to the punch-stock at its opposite end, whereby a most advantageous application of power is obtained, and by it I am enabled, for a given stroke, to work closer to the centre of the sector, and use a shorter lever than where a cam or eccentric is used to operate the punch-stock.
957,177 May. 10, 1910 Hydraulic jack Richard Ward Baker Roselle, NJ